External HDD Issues with Snow Leopard and Time Machine

Hello,
I have a 1TB WD 10EADS External HDD, and it had some files on it. I connected it the other day to an iMac I recently upgraded to 10.6, and wanted to do a complete time machine backup of the computer to it (250GB HDD). I copied the files off the external HDD I needed and then Time Machine needed to format it as it was a FAT32 drive. This went successfully, and I started the Time Machine backup. This went quite slowly and failed after ~2.5GB or so. I restarted and tried again to no avail upon which Time Machine told me I should reformat it in Disk Utility. So I did, and to no avail.
I tried this a number of times and sometimes when doing a reformat I was told that the drive could not be unmounted. I tried manually copying files to the disk which started to work but then failed promptly with error (-36) and the message "The Finder can't complete the operation because some data in “ [Program/File Name]” can't be read or written." I upgraded to 10.6.1 also to no avail. I even repaired permissions and the disk, and booted Disk Utility from the Snow Leopard disc and formatted that to no avail.
I have read this is an I/O error and can be associated with bad drives, but as I stated before, the drive worked perfectly until Time Machine formatted it. I took the HDD to another Mac running 10.6, and it told me it had a POSIX error. I did some googling and found that if I format it under a Windows machine, and then reformat under the mac it might work.
What I want to know is, is this a 10.6 error or has the HDD decided to go kaput after Time Machine formatting it?
Thanks for your help

Thomas Huxley wrote:
Time Machine backup failed. I think it's a glitch with the computer, not the HDD. Going to zero out the drive now.
Any other suggestions on how I might bypass this error to get data onto the Disk eg. transfer over to another computer, so I can reformat the computer and install Snow Leopard from scratch? The whole purpose of doing this time Machine backup was to get all the files off the computer to perform a clean install of Snow Leopard.
I assume you're positive the TM disk has both the correct *Partition Map Scheme* (GUID) and Format (Mac OS Extended (journaled), but not case-sensitive)? One of them being wrong is the most common cause of a first TM backup failing.
Did you do either a +*Verify Disk+* (not permissions) or a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD, or only your TM drive? The message you got could be a result of a problem on either one.
Other options are to make a "bootable clone" via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. CCC is donationware, SD has a free version that will do it. If you do that, boot from it, and be sure everything works before erasing your internal HD. Google them.
Note that there are many, many reports of problems here with WD drives, and that some of them are not bootable.
I would not upgrade without backups (Murphy was an optimist!), but is there a reason you want to erase your HD? It's not required, and rarely does any good. The normal install will simply install Snow Leopard and remove Leopard. Your apps, data, etc., won't be touched.

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AirPort Express: Difficulty joining third-party network that is using WEP
Last Modified: October 21, 2008
Article: TS2098
Old Article: 300153
Symptoms
Joining the network of some third-party wireless access points requires a little special treatment when the network is protected by Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), an older wireless security protocol.
Products Affected
AirPort Express Base Station
Resolution
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angelop wrote:
I have used the following for about two years.
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HT201250 My 10.7.3 Time Machine won't work with external disks. Worked fine with Snow Leopard, and even Lion 10.7.1

My 10.7.3 Time Machine won't work with external disks. Worked fine with Snow Leopard, and even Lion 10.7.1
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If I cant get a fix soon, I am downgrading back to SnowL.

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Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/TM-Disk/Backups.backupdb
9.56 GB required (including padding), 911.15 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
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Backup canceled.
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Good Morning,
I have a MacBook Pro 15" and my warranty just ran out! I partitioned my harddrive into two partitions, one with Snow Leopard and the other with microsoft.This morning I turned on my Macbook Pro and it will not boot into Snow Leopard. I shut it off took out the battery, reinstalled the battery. Then I put in the Snow Leopard CD and booted up to disk utility and The Snow Leopard partion would not show up?? I do see the microsoft partion.
I also rebooted holding down the shift key and still no Snow Leopard
Could you please tell me what I can do, what keys do I press on restart any advice to get Snow leopard back.
thank you.

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External HDD Issues with Snow Leopard and Time Machine

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